The Karma Circle: Chances On Top of Chances
by SaintHeartwing
Summary: Gaz is terribly sick with a stomach bug, and stuck in the hospital, next to a kid with cancer. But she has no idea until its too late that someone wants her dead. But the Entity of Death, Purgatory, offers her a chance to prevent her own death. But maybe she'll be able to save more than her own life. Warning: deals with very heavy themes of death, growing up and tragedy.


The purple-haired girl grunted, rolling her eyes and glancing away from the other patients in the hospital wing, looking around at the pastel-colored walls, the overly pristine floors, the ugly flowery patient curtains around her bed as she grunted a bit. Gazlene Membrane was, regrettably, sick with a VERY awful stomach bug, and her father had rushed her to the hospital in a surprising bit of overreactive overprotectiveness. Dib suspected it was a result of her eating so much at Bloaty's.

"These cheese 'round the clock is gettin' ya blocked." He'd reasoned. She'd whacked him over the head with her pillow again and again, making him quickly exit the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts, and the aggravation of knowing everyone in school had seen her violently projectile-vomiting half a ton of Bloaty's food out of her body and across the cafeteria. They all knew she was sick and stuck in the hospital, and plenty of very lovely people had sent her cards.

"We just want you to know that, despite everything you did to us, we still feel the same about you as we always did...that you be dragged through the desert, on fire and fed to venomous scorpions."

"Saw you puke out half your body at lunchtime. Do the school a favor and puke out the other half, then we'll be rid of you completely."

"I can't tell you how sorry I was to hear you were sick. Sorry that you're not dead yet. Screw you for force-feeding me my own inhaler."

"I just want you to know that God loves you, and forgives ALL sins. Since I'm NOT God, I pray TO him you die there and rot in Hell, cuz you're as godLESS as a pygmy in the Amazon."

"At least I know where THAT one definitely came from!" Gaz grunted as she read over the card, glowering balefully at it before tossing it to the side, folding her arms over her chest and "harrumphing" as the patient on the bed next to her, who could juuuust reach her desk plucked up another card, reading it aloud in his shaky voice, much of his hair gone, looking shaved off for a future surgery, wearing an ordinary green patient's gown, with very runny-looking yet also very deep violet eyes that had made Gaz view him with odd intrigue.

"These roses are red. Now they are dead. I heard you're sick with a stomach bug. I wish you worms in your head." He read aloud, looking back at the vase of dead roses left by Gaz's bed before picking up ANOTHER card. "You selfish asshole, I hope you die, choking on your bile in piles of cards now six feet high. Ah. POETRY."

Gaz found herself snorting with a bit of laughter despite trying to surpress it as she looked at the wry smile of the patient. "Yeah. They're such charmers. I'm gonna feed them their own teeth."

"Boy, wish I could find out what that tastes like, a lot of MY teeth got rotted out due to crappy treatment." He remarked, showing off his mouth, and nonchalantly flicking his tongue through big gaps in his teeth.

"Well at least you still got your personality." She muttered with a sigh. "What've you got? I got a flu that had me projectile puke half my stomach up."

"I got that dragon, cancer." The kid's somewhat shaky voice intoned as Gaz raised an eyebrow up, her tone slightly becoming more intrigued.

"Really?...what kind?"

"It's a form of lymphomatic lung cancer."

"...fuck." Gaz sighed. "You know, I lost my mom to cancer. Dad threw himself into his work to try and cure it. Good news is he FOUND a cure for cancer. BAD news is it was PROSTATE cancer." She added with a dry laugh. "By the time he figured that out, it was too late, and mom was gone."

"Sucks." said the kid as Gaz nodded, and sighed as she turned on her side, bit by bit the light had faded from outside, and she was beginning to drift off into slumber, deciding to try and get an early rest.

"Yeah...sucks." She mumbled. "What's your name?"

"Brian."

"Kay. Night, Brian."

"Night, Gaz."

But that night, her slumber was quickly awoken by a disturbing, horrible sound. She grunted a bit, turning on her side as the dark shadows of the night flickered up and down the hall, and the faint glimmer of the lights from the hallway cast long dark stretches of shade over her room. And then she saw it. Someone was over the kid's bed, turning away and...holding up a pillow. But before she could get a good look at him, he had slammed it hard over HER face.

Gaz was still weak. Weak from the stomach bug, her body drained and barely staying conscious. She could only flail around uselessly, her screams muffled, barely hearing the smug voice of her murderer. "Now NOBODY'S gonna know what I did to you..."

She could see spots dancing before her eyes, and Gaz spluttered and coughed and wheezed, her throat burning, everything fading into black and then-

Then she was sitting in a dark abyss as someone on a floating, hovering, silvery chair sat before her. He looked like...an Irken. Yes. An irken with long, spiky antannae, dark clothing, black boots and gloves. His design was similar, she realized, to a "Communications Officer", she'd seen a few of them on those videos of the "Massive" that she'd peeked in on during her time over at Zim's place when she'd been forced to come along to stop one of his dumb plans...mostly because Zim was targeting something she actually cared about.

He'd had the gall, in fact, to try and create an actual "Polybius" game to try and make other kids into his slaves. Well, Dib had wanted to stop that, but more importantly, so did she. Because it meant EVERYONE was playing THAT stupid game and nobody wanted to fight against HER in the arcade, and she needed people to crush in competitions. Couldn't do that if everyone was crowded around the Polybius game, so she'd gone over to his place and fiddled with the master controls along with Dib, affecting the game's reactionary sensory broadwave signal...making it only effect Irkens instead of humans.

Thus Zim and Skoodge and Tak and Tenn had been glued to its screen for a good MONTH while she and Dib had gotten full run of Zim's house, eating up aaaaall his sugary food, screwing with his base and making rotten prank calls to the Tallest that only just BARELY pissed them off less than Zim's calls. Yes, this being very much reminded her of one of the Massive's communication officers, complete with the communications "patches" on the sides of his head, embedded into his skull like strange headphones, the silver belt and dark grey undershirt, and his eyes...his eyes too were dark black, with slightly lighter shades of black for his pupils as he rather cheerily smiled at her, steepling his gloved, clawed hands.

"How nice to see you, Gazlene." he said. "I am Purgatory, and I'm Entity of Death and Judgment. I'm going to give you a chance to prevent your own death."

"Well good. Glad to see SOMEBODY up there or...down there...cares about me." Gaz remarked. "As they SHOULD. I'm a big deal."

"Oh, you certainly are." Purgatory said with a smile. "I'll give you a simple deal. Every time you die, you will return 24 hours back, to the beginning of the day you died. You'll have an entire day to prevent your own death. But you'd best use your time wisely, for much like the Vampire Piggy Hunter you so love playing as, you only have so many lives." He added, snapping his digits as a big counter manifested in midair in a fiery display, Gaz seeing a number "30" tick down to "29". "If you succeed, you'll move on with your life as if nothing bad ever happened. I'll even give you a speedy recovery from that stomach bug. If you fail, well...you can look forward to a lifetime of torment and agony." The being remarked, steepling his claws. "Deal?"

"Fine by me. I can do this in just a few resets." Gaz said with a grin.

...

...

...

...well...she couldn't.

The first few times, she'd gotten careless. She had tried to simply hide a knife or fork under her pillow and had simply thought "I'll just wait until that jerk comes tonight to kill me". Her attempts hadn't worked out so well because she'd allowed sleep to claim her just like it had before. And so she'd woken up too late, seeing Brian had, once again, been smothered, silenced to keep from being a witness to her OWN murder, and she was waking up too late to even see THAT, waking up to the awful pressure of the pillow on her face.

So she'd, instead, tried to stay awake, and had decided the best way to do that was to talk to Brian.

"Whatcha watching?" She'd asked, determined to stay awake as she heard Brian's phone playing a video and he turned it slightly, showing off a woman who distinctly had his eyes, wearing a blue patient's uniform. She could hear "happy birthday" drifting up from the screen as the two joined together in blowing out a birthday cake.

"My mom. She also had the same type of cancer." He remarked as Gaz felt that unfamiliar feeling rise back up in her. A feeling she wasn't used to experiencing at all, and it took a while before she realized...she was feeling sorry for Brian. Genuinely sorry. "It was pretty bad seeing her waste away. Died two years ago and I can't forget it. How about yours?"

"...three." Gaz gruned as she nervously chewed her lip. "I...I sometimes can't..."

"See her?" He finished.

"...yeah." Gaz said, holding her head in one hand, and taking a deep breath. "Can you fuckin' believe it? I can't picture my own mom in my head right. How pathetic am I?"

"We can be pathetic together." Brian laughed. "You got any good videos on YOUR phone?"

She reached over to the desk she had, and took out her phone, trying to bring up some saved "Pooptube" videos. "Ooh!" Brian grinned in delight. "Cool, you got all these monster truck videos?"

"Yeah, sure! I love this stuff."

"I'm glad you're not into the "girly-girl" stuff."

"Yeah, I'm not that kind of girl." She insisted with a snort. "I was never "Wendy", I was always more "Lost Boy", y'know?"

Unfortunately, this effect backfired. Bad. Because instead of falling asleep too early out of sheer boredom, the hum of the video screen and the constant watching of videos had, bit by bit, made her and Brian drift off together into slumber.

But there was one bit of good to come from this. For she had awoken JUST in time to see who her murderer was. She had jolted awake upon just BARELY hearing the door to her patient room open, and saw Torque Smacky there, evidently with a card. "Ugh. What're you doing here, Torque?"

"Well, heard you were sick, so I thought I could...cheer you up?" He asked, putting the card next to the others on her desk, Gaz groaning and rubbing over her sore eyes with the flat of her palms.

"Ugh. Torque, I told you, I'm not interested in you. Like, at all. I mean, let's be honest. Not only did you arrive late, but taking me to a Mexican food place? We all know you prefer footlongs to tacos. I only went out with you to try and make Dib jealous when he was trying to go out with Tak!" She grunted, moving her hands away from her face. "And he only did that to sneak a-"

But then she'd seen Torque rip the pillow out from behind her head and force it down on her face. Her arms flailed about, uselessly trying to pry the pillow off, her skull popping, her head going swimmy, panting and heaving as Torque snarled angrily. "Call ME gay, will you?! I'll teach you! The whole school'll love me when they find out I got rid of you! And nobody will ever tie it BACK to me when I'm through! He added with a sneering laugh, Gaz feeling her breath beginning to dissolve away...

And she awoke AGAIN in her patient's bed, moaning as she rose up in her bed, Brian staring at her. "What's wrong?"

"I keep reliving the same freakin' day over and over, and, evidently, Torque Smacky keeps coming in to kill me because I really, REALLY pissed him off." She grunted, putting her arm over her eyes and cringing. "I just can't stay awake enough to be ready for when he comes in! And we're in a HOSPITAL, there's no way I can get hold of, like, a gun or something to stop him. The most I could get was one of those stupid plastic spoons or knives."

"You're...living the same day over and over. Like "Groundhog Day"?" Brian asked.

"Who?"

"You know. Groundhog Day! The film with Bill Murray? The Ghostbuster?"

Stupid stares. Brian sighed, shaking his head, and getting out his phone. "Look! EDUCATE yourself!" He insisted, bringing up the 1984 movie as Gaz leaned over to watch the screen. And unfortunately, as fun as the movie was...

The two ended up falling asleep watching the sequel, and, sure enough...

"Oh come on-"

PHWOMP!

"Call ME gay, will you?!"

"RRGGHHH!"

She could almost hear Purgatory's faintly mocking voice echoing through her mind. _"Tsk-tsk. Gazlene, really. You're at the halfway point. You've GOT to start taking this more seriously. You need to learn to use your lifelines. Phone a friend, if need be..."_

And WITH that, Gaz awoke again, looking over at Brian as she stared in confusion. She was now on life number 15 and getting increasingly frustrated. "Brian, I'm having a Groundhog's Day scenario. I keep relieving a day over and over again and Torque Smacky keeps killing me. I need a way to stop him."

"...you're serious?" Brian asked, sounding a bit weirded out. "Well, I'm glad you know my name, Miss Gaz, but...how do I know that stomach bug you've got isn't messing up your head-" He began to say, scratching at his shaved skull.

"You've got a form of lymphomatic lung cancer, your MOM also had the same kind of cancer. You've got a video on your phone that shows her in a blue patient's gown and she and you are blowing out a birthday cake in a hospital wing, and your teeth rotted out because the hospital messed up a treatment." Gaz rattled off.

Brian's eyes bulged out a bit and he let out a long whistle. "Wooooo. Okaaaay. So it IS happening. Alright, well...hmm." He rubbed his chin. "Listen. Can't you call up your family or something and ask them to stay the night with you?" He offered helpfully, picking up one of her "charming" cards and reading it over, sighing at all the venom that laid within.

"DIB would probably just fall asleep too." She grunted. "...but..." an idea was coming to her. "I COULD get him to bring me something that'll help. And to make sure I wake up..."

She quickly picked up her phone, and began to dial. Soon, she had left a message for Dib, and then set an alarm for just two minutes before Torque always entered her patient's room. There. Setting the cell phone under her pillow, she then laid back, taking a deep breath, and waiting. "Okay. He better be here. He BETTER be. If he doesn't, I don't care what it takes, I'll DRAG my ass out of this bed and into the "Clean Utility" room to steal a friggin' BEDPAN if I gotta. Anything big and thick to beat Torque to death with!"

...

...

...

...unluckily for her, the first time she called Dib up, he DIDN'T come, and Torque basically just came on in. So she'd had to call him TWICE. This time, he DID come, and he brought a very special teddy bear from her room.

A VERY special teddy bear. She was soon ripping the stuffing out of it as Dib and Brian stared in surprise, mouth agape. Inside was a razor blade which she flicked open, twirling it in one hand, doing hand exercises with it, flicking the knife blade about between her fingers like she was twirling a quarter.

"This time...for sure." She insisted.

And so, with Dib adding a bit of supposed "additional" security by sleeping in the room, in a chair not too far away, Gaz had pretended to fall asleep, lying in her bed, gripping the switchblade under her pillow, waiting patiently and carefully. Slowly but surely, the time slid on by as she fumbled the switchblade under her pillow, waiting...waiting.

And she was soon rewarded by hearing the sound of the door slooowly creaking open. Gritting her teeth, she readied the knife. C'mon, she thought. Get closer. Get closer.

Silence though. She couldn't really hear his footsteps, he was moving too quietly and too slowly. But something was off. Why wasn't he getting close to her and Brian's bed? If he just got close enough to that, she could-

Then she heard faint mumbling and squirming and her eyes bulged out. She sat up in bed, gasping.

Dib was being strangled by Torque, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as Torque growled and kept throttling him, Dib's breath becoming a rattle, his skin turning even paler than usual as Gaz gasped. "The FUCK!?" She managed to exclaim, Torque turning around, glowering as Dib flopped out of his grip...dead.

"Fuck." He grunted, approaching Gaz before stepping back as she held up her switchblade. "Fuck! You got a knife?!"

Gaz's eyes bulged out, her breath becoming hot and heavy, her head getting swimmy as she looked at Torque, then at Dib. She could maybe attack Torque now, maybe lunge at him, MAYBE kill him. Or just force him to run away, tell the hospital staff, and she'd survive the night but...Dib would be dead.

"...fuck." She moaned aloud, and she held the knife to her neck. "See you tomorrow, Torque."

SCHLIIIKK.

THIS time...Gaz wouldn't mess it up. She grunted, and dragged herself out of the bed, grabbing the phone off her desk and dialing up Dib. She dialed him again and again, demanding he bring him her special teddy. Soon she was ripping out the stuffing again, and even SOONER, she was doing slightly shaky sit-ups in her bed, the knife between her teeth, Brian and Dib gazing in sheer surprise and shock.

"Twenty one...twenty two..." She panted out, breath heaving, chest rising up and down. "Gotta...stay in...shape." She insisted to herself, eyes a-blaze. "Must...stay...awake!"

Glancing up, she looked at Dib. "Dib, listen. Hide in the closet around 9:45, got it? Brian, you're gonna pretend you're asleep. Dib, I want you to get your phone ready when you hear the door open, and record through the crack."

Dib scratched his black-haired head, the glasses-wearing brother of Gaz shrugging as he went off to get a drink, Brian seeing Gaz now doing ONE-HANDED push-ups, and with surprising dexterity, some sweat still nevertheless dribbling down her body. "Wow. You're really pushing yourself." He remarked with clear surprise, and with his tone indicating he was also quite impressed.

"You gave me the idea." Gaz said with a shrug, Brian tilting his head a bit to the side. "...Groundhog Day scenario, Brian. I'll explain it later, okay? If I live to tomorrow."

"...okay. Here's to tomorrow, then!" He remarked with a wry smile, plucking up the carton of chocolate milk the nuse had put down for him. "...actually, do YOU want this? I prefer regular milk."

"Oh! Sure!" Gaz said quickly, racing over to the side of his bed with amazing speed despite her arms and legs feeling like jelly. She began slurping it down through the straw as Brian read over, like he always seemed to, her stack of "get well" cards. Or rather the "may the hospital food make you die of diarrhea" cards.

"You're not like other girls. I like that." Brian admitted.

Gaz smiled warmly. "Yeah. Guess I'm not!"

"Gonna suck when you get older, though. Like me." He sighed.

"You're only...what, two years older?"

"Yeah, but it's no fun. You...lose things." Brian confessed softly. "...it sucks. People expect you to act more...you know. "Normal"?"

"Yeah. That sucks." Gaz grunted. "In what, a year? I won't be able to ride down the street on my bike topless anymore." She sighed. "Cuz I'll be breaking a law if I do. And they'll want me to do stuff like wear bras and go talk to boys and stop playing games and climbing anything I want."

"Sucks."

"...big time." Gaz sighed, slurping down the last of the chocolate milk. "...growing up, huh?"

"...yeah...growing up."

And that night...it was all ready. Dib was in the closet as the light of the moon softly filtered in through the room's singular window outside. The shadows danced softly across the patient room, everything quiet and still as Gaz fingered the switchblade under her pillow...

Hearing the door sloooooowly creak open. She inwardly grinned, flicking the switchblade open as she closed her eyes tightly, listening...listening.

She could now hear him approach the bed, first Brian, just like always. She could faintly hear him trying to hold in his breath, and she gripped the handle of the switchblade, hearing Torque veeeeery carefully removing the pillow from underneath Brian's head. "The school'll throw me a party when they figure out I got rid of Gaz. But first, better make sure this freak can't squeal on me..." Torque quietly muttered, thinking that the two were fast asleep, and couldn't hear him. Gaz took in a deep breath...

Then shot up from the bed, throwing herself clean out of it, the blade held high, and she SLAMMED it down, straight down, right into the top of Torque Smacky's head! SCHA-THRLRRRLKK!

Torque coughed and spluttered blood, mouth slightly agape, eyes bulging as he gripped at his neck. His voice came out in a strangled, wet sound, Brian shooting up, Gaz keeping the knife in deep, and slightly TWISTING it as she hung from the top of Torque's head, Dib catching all of this on his phone, now emerging from the closet, and yelling at the top of his lungs. "HELP! GET HELP! SOMEBODY!"

"KNIFE to see you, Torque!" Gaz roared out.

And with that, she yanked it out, and he fell to the floor in a heap, Gaz letting out a triumphant cry, grinning with delight as she held the knife up, smirking in delight...

Before the hours and hours she'd spent awake, without rest and sleep all day, finally caught up to her, and she flopped onto the floor nearby, Torque's body pooling blood that slowly drizzled out, sliding into her sides and soaking her patient's gown.

...

...

...

...but...it was over. At long, long last, it was over. The next day, after explaining everything that had happened...well, almost everything, she'd lied slightly about how she'd known Torque was coming for her...she had just spent the whole day chatting with Brian about the Groundhog Day scenario she'd endured, everything she'd been through, and the two had laughed and laughed over it.

Over the week, Gaz kept getting better, feeling stronger, and soon she'd be good enough to get out of the hospital. She had given one of her spare Game Slave Split Screens to Brian, and the two had spent many a linked-up co-op session fighting vampire piggies off.

"Ha-HA!" She cried out, punching at the air as Brian grinned from over in the next bed in between a bit of coughing. "And the Piggygorgon is defeated!" She proclaimed. "Great work on the fireball spell."

"I loves the smell of demon bacon in the mornin'." Brian chuckled, looking at Gaz.

"It's nice to be able to actually play this with someone else." Gaz said with a grin. "Dib's usually too STUPID to know how to play these games."

"And nobody else at school'll play with you, right? Well, I'm glad I could play with you. Good thing I'm a fast learner." Brian said with a smile as Gaz let out a big yawn, then turned off her Game Slave Split Screen. "I wish more girls could be like you."

"Kinda wish the same." Gaz laughed. "You're really cool for an "old fuddy" Mr. 12 year old!" she sniggered.

"Yeah. And when guys like me turn thirteen, we're not gonna be able to do stuff like having grass-stained shirts and dusty knees and going out to catch fireflies." Brian admitted with a sad sigh as Gaz looked at his quietly somber face. "...and when I was younger? My mom and I would always talk, and I would like to watch butterflies float around. I could cry whenever I wanted to, but now I keep it all in. And...it feels like I lost some of that tenderness I had when I was younger, more...like a girl. You lose so much when you get older. It...hurts." Brian murmured. "...it hurts losing that. Because you can't really get it back."

"Yeah...it sucks."

"...totally sucks." Brian sighed.

"But you know what cheers me up?" Gaz offered quietly. "...sharing a good game with a friend." She said with a wink, as Brian wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

"Y-yeah. That does the trick. So you gonna pick up the new "Poop Dawg" game that's coming out?"

"It's a GREAT open world game for the Game Slave." She insisted with a nod. "I'm gonna check it out and then come on over and show you all the cheats I've found. Shouldn't take me more than a day or two."

Brian smiled in delight at her as he saw Professor Membrane enter the room, and Gaz looked back at him, Brian giving her a thumbs up. "You stay cool."

"You are so cheesy. But being here in the hospital didn't suck cuz of you." Gaz admitted with a small smile. "I'll be back soon, okay Brian?"

He nodded back at her, Gaz heading out the door with her father, eagerly awaiting tomorrow, when the game store would have "Poop Dawg: City of Sin II" on the shelves. She couldn't wait to show Brian all the crazy new cars Poop Dawg would be able to drive around on the sidewalk, runnin' down civilians and doin' drive bys to hilariously ridiculous rap music.

...

...

...

...but two days later, after finding all the cheats and heading to the hospital, Gaz was, when she entered the hospital wing he'd been in, surprised to see...

Nobody was there in the room. She blinked a bit, staring stupidly at the empty bed, at the moved-aside curtains which softly swung back and forth as a nearby fan blew them about. She stared, confused, before slowly turning her large head towards the nurse's station, a poofy-haired woman looking up at her.

"Hey. Where's Brian?"

"Oh, you mean Brian Green?" The nurse asked, her tone becoming quiet and somber. "Ohhhh. Did...did you not know? He, um...he's not...I mean...how to say this."

Gaz frowned. "Look, did he get moved, or what? Just tell me!"

"He...well, his diagnosis was terminal. He...he only had a few months to live anyway, and we were amazed he hung on for a whole other two weeks. Frankly, we thought he was going to leave us a week ago." The nurse confessed nervously. "Maybe you being around helped him perk up?"

Gaz felt her insides turn to ice, her mouth slightly agape, her eyes bulging wide in sheer shock as she felt her body beginning to slowly but surely shiver and quake. "...what?"

"I'm sorry, miss, but...he's gone. He passed away night. His father's took the body away just an hour ago. Would you like me to tell you his father's address? Since he's no longer a patient here, no point in doctor-patient confidentiality stuff, you might feel better going to-"

Gaz had dropped the game and bolted out of the hospital. She tore down the halls, her lungs feeling as though they were inhaling liquid fire, her hair whipping about in the cold air. She raced down the sidewalk, her eyes stinging.

 _ **And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep,**_

 _ **Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guuuaaard.**_

 _ **I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds its way**_

 _ **To catching fire-flies out in the backyaaaaaard...**_

She kept tearing down the street, her legs carrying her long and hard down Welstone Street. Gaz ran and ran, barreling, at long last, into the park, collapsing against a tree.

 _ **And I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived,**_

 _ **And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have woooon.**_

 _ **And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see...?"**_

She howled and screamed, and smacked her fists down into the slightly faded grass over and over. Bits of mud and grass flopped about through the air, as the tears dug trails down her cheeks. She sobbed freely and openly. "No. NO. NO, NO, NO! NO! NO!" She screeched again and again. "NOT...FAIR! THAT'S NOT FAIR! **THAT'S NOT FUCKING FAAAAIR!** **IT'S NOT FAIR!** "

"Gaz."

 _ **"When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked,**_

 _ **And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked!**_

 _ **And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone,**_

 _ **I seldom dooo..."**_

Gaz stopped screaming. In an instant...she was in front of him. Purgatory was staring at her, sitting in his hovering chair, as soft green light throbbed beneath his seat. She was no longer in absolute darkness, a terrifyingly empty abyss of deep dark. No, instead, she was in a soft white plain of near endless white, as a tender, gentle blue light bathed down upon them from above, and Purgatory gently held his hands in his lap.

"...why." She whispered out. "You KNEW he was going to die, didn't you?! You KNEW he was gonna die in a little while, but you didn't tell me! You could have told me that! You could have told me he wasn't gonna live long! Why didn't you say anything?! Why didn't you offer me some deal that would have helped him!?" She said, her tone rising, getting more baleful, more furious, more filled with bitter venom and betrayal. "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING?! If you could keep bringing me back, then bring HIM back-"

"He's gone on, Gaz." Purgatory said, as he sighed softly, and closed his deep, dark eyes. "He's gone on. The truth is..." He hesitated. "...it did mean a lot to him that you were there. But he knew it meant more to you for him to stay." Purgatory confessed to her. "His time was already up, Gazlene. The only reason he lingered on was because he was worried about you. But there's a limit to even that kind of compassion."

Gaz sniffled quietly, and then covered her face with her hands as Purgatory gently slid off the chair, and knelt by her. "It's not...fair. He didn't...he didn't deserve, and...he was FUN, I...why did you make me care..." She whispered out. "I don't want to feel like this. I don't...I...I wish you'd just...just let me die!" Gaz sobbed out, as Purgatory's soft gloved hands gently stroked her back.

 _ **"And I have looost some kiiiiiindneeeeess..."**_

"No. You don't. He made you happy, Gaz. And you made him happy. I am not just about punishment. I am also redemption." Purgatory intoned tenderly. "I wasn't just giving you a chance to save your **life**. I was giving you a chance to save your _**soul**_."

He kept gently stroking her back, letting her cry as she slowly withdrew her hands from her face, and he gently placed his forehead on hers. She just sniffled, snot and tears sloughing down onto the ground below, as time seemed to tick on in the empty white abyss.

 _ **"But I was a girl toooooo..."**_

"It's not...fair." She finally muttered out. "It's not fair that this hurts so much. Why do people gotta die anyway?"

"Sometimes sadness is good." Purgatory offered. "You won't forget him, will you?"

"No. And I couldn't if I wanted to." She quietly admitted.

"Don't." He added. "...you'll be okay now, Gaz." He added. "He knew that too. That's why he could leave without regrets."

"...growing up really does suck." She mumbled, wiping her eyes on her arm. "Now I know how he felt. It's like I'm saying goodbye to more than just a friend, it's...it's like I'm saying goodbye to a chunk of myself. To my past. I...I hate this. I didn't wanna change. I didn't want to feel this."

"Yeah. But you had to. We kind of all have to." Purgatory admitted. "It doesn't have to be the same. What you are will never be the same as what you were. But it can still be good."

 _ **"And yoooouuu were just like meeee..."**_

"But I couldn't even say goodbye." Gaz muttered out. "...can't you at least let me do that?"

"Because of what you've done, Gaz...it won't **be** goodbye." Purgatory offered. "...just..."see you later"."

And with that, Gaz awoke, blinking a bit, looking around. The park was empty, a soft wind blowing through her hair...the game she had left behind at the hospital now back in her hands. Sniffling a bit, she rose up, taking in a deep breath...and headed home. A little wiser. A little better. Just enough.

Good enough.

 _ **"And I was just...like yooooouuuu..."**_


End file.
